SSH QuickSec Toolkit for SAN - Bringing Security to iSCSI

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The first adopters of the SSH QuickSec Toolkit for SAN are Adaptec who will be integrating the functionality into upcoming iSCSI products. Earlier this month, SSH announced that they had entered into an agreement with Adaptec to develop IPSec capable iSCSI storage networking devices. The agreement allows Adaptec to be the first to market with hardware based IPSec capable iSCSI devices, a step they see as being instrumental in the market acceptance of iSCSI.

"The availability of robust, standards based, interoperable security solutions, are critical for the broad deployment of iSCSI and TCP offload," said Ram Jayam, vice president and general manager of Adaptec's Storage Networking Group. "Integrating SSH's QuickSec Toolkit for SAN software with our innovative security hardware will provide time-to-market advantages and enable security for data and storage networks."

While Adaptec are the first to form an alliance with SSH, Byron Rashed, senior marketing communications manager for SSH foresees other relationships developing in the future. "Any company that makes, or will make in the future, storage products with iSCSI can utilize the power and flexibility if the SSH QuickSec Toolkit for SAN." The use of industry standard encryption makes the SSH QuickSec Toolkit for SAN suitable for many applications - a key consideration for SSH during the development of the product. "The product is the result of our significant investment in R&D, and of our participation in the standards process such as our work with the IETF." said Rashed.

Although neither IPSec nor iSCSI are 'new' technologies, it is the way in which the SSH QuickSec Toolkit for SAN is implemented which makes it a significant step forward in iSCSI development, as Jussi Kukkonen, product manager for SSH explains. "By using the appropriate offloading components, it's possible to get wire speed security. In reality, this is no more than people should expect. It's unreasonable to think that people would buy into a technology that reduces system performance when almost every other purchase is made with increased performance in mind."

As a company, SSH Communications Security is hardly new to the security arena - their SSH Secure Shell product (from which the company name is derived) has long been accepted as the de facto standard in secure remote access, encrypted file transfer and terminal connection software. The company also produces a range of other security and authentication related products all of which are based around accepted industry standards.

Because of the nature of the SSH QuickSec Toolkit for SAN product, it is only available as a source code package to hardware manufacturers who wish to integrate the functionality into their devices. SSH are happy to work with companies to jointly develop products with the SSH QuickSec Toolkit family capability, or to just supply the code to allow companies to develop products on their own.

There are still many obstacles to be overcome before wide-scale market acceptance of iSCSI, but with products like the QuickSec Toolkit for SAN, SSH has ensured that security is not one of them.